Prep: Obtain a Turkish rug. If you already have one, go to step one. If you don't, get a ticket to Ankara and bring an empty suitcase (or a suitcase full of stuff you don't mind leaving in Turkey). Go see Hilme in the western part of town. Sorry I can't dig up his exact address, but he's the most honest rug salesman I've ever met. Great selection, all "weh-ge-ta-ble" dyes. It was he who taught me how to clean a good wool rug in the first place. If you can't get to Turkey, borrow someone's beautiful but dirty rug.
Step 1: Wait for a day in late winter when there's semi-fresh snow on the ground but it's sunny and the air temperature is above freezing. Like last Thursday's weather in Middlebury. Perfect.
Step 2: Shake the rug outside and lay it in the snow. Wearing snow pants and gloves, scrub it all over with snow and then with a rag.
Step 3: Shake it out again and hang it outside to dry for a few hours.
See, it looks much nicer. Wasn't that fun?
8 comments:
How do Turks who live where it doesn't snow clean their rugs? Do they pack them on rug-cleaning junkets into the mountains?
I want to know if those ones on the snow ever take off and fly over the town. I am sure the rugs love the snow treatment.
Makes me wish I had a Turkish rug. Sounds like I missed out on all the fun. Of course, that means the rugs only get washed once a year and that sounds like my kind of rug. Even better would be the one that vaccuums it's self.
And how do you spell vaccumn?
Dave: Most Turks I met didn't own nice rugs (ie "export quality"). They owned crummy ones, so they had their cleaning women do it with cold water and then hung them up on the stair railings in the apartment building.
Mom: Yes, and yes. I had to forcibly hold them down for their annual cleaning, but they were much happier afterward.
Sarah: We don't wear our shoes inside and have some fairly stringent rules about what can be in your hands while you are on the rugs, so they don't get very dirty.
And I hate trying to spell things like "vacuum", "broccoli" and "zucchini". Luckily my mac has a dictionary on the dashboard and I use it all the time for spelling.
Awesome, your rugs get clean and you get your daily exercise in all at the same time.
Way cool way to clean a rug!! They'd certainly never get clean (at least that way) down here in Florida!! Love your photos!!
Is this really what Hilme taught you? Either way it's genius and makes a great blog post. Seriously, I bet you will get some Google search hits - all of my "How To" posts get strangers searching for just that thing.
DM: Yes, it is. I asked him how to clean them (thinking "Woolite") and he showed me the Turkish version of Woolite, but then paused and explained that the BEST way was, well, snow. I pressed him for a little more information, and this was it.
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